Two-Out Offense Has Been a Specialty for the Brewers Offense. Can It Be So in October?

In the comment section of a piece I wrote yesterday about the Brewers' power-speed combination and varied means of scoring runs, community moderator and site member @Team Canada made an astute observation:

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I'd be curious how this team compares historically in the 2-out run scoring department. [Sunday] was a perfect exemplar of the crazy amount of 2-out hits they've come up with this season.

As most Brewer Fanatic denizens are, T.C. was right on the money. No team in MLB has scored more runs with two outs this year than have Murph's Marauders, at 321. They're the only team in the league with a better OPS after two are out than they have before that, and rank third in overall adjusted OPS in those situations, trailing only the Dodgers and Diamondbacks.

We could describe them best, perhaps, as very good but not quite historic. They're tied for 94th since 1969 in relative production with two outs, and tied for 160th in absolute production. If we isolate two-out spots with runners in scoring position, the Crew lead the league in home runs this year, at 30. They're 15th-best since 1969 in relative production in those clutch moments, and 46th-best in absolute production.

Obviously, we can't glean a lot from directly comparing run totals across seasons and eras, because the run environment has a lot to say about how many runs a team scores in an absolute sense. The 1999 Cleveland team scored an eye-popping 428 runs after recording two outs in innings, because in 1999, runs were everywhere. Runs were stadium giveaways. The Brewers' 321 two-out runs is already tied for the 123rd-highest total since 1969, though, and with six games to play, they could easily climb into the top 70.

One more aside about these historical comparisons, before we try to pin down whether it's possible for the team to sustain this into the playoffs: Do you know who had the best overall production with two outs, since 1969, relative to the rest of the league? It was the 1978 Brewers! That team's 93 wins weren't enough to earn them a playoff berth, but they raked with two outs, giving the league notice of the half-decade of hurt ahead of them. Paul Molitor and Robin Yount were still finding their footing that year, but Larry Hisle, Gorman Thomas, Cecil Cooper, Sal Bando, Sixto Lezcano, Don Money and Ben Oglivie laid waste to the junior circuit--especially after two were down. That team batted .285/.355/.446 with two outs. Talk about a relentless offense.

That long-ago iteration of the Crew had two fledgling expansion teams on whom to feast, in the Blue Jays and Mariners. It's a lot harder to excel that way in any aspect of the game in 2024, but this year's team is hitting .240/.325/.410 when they're down to their last out in a frame. Pair their power with the speed element to move runners into scoring position, and they have put up a whole bunch of runs even without crazy raw numbers in that situation. The question is whether, as they turn their attention toward the playoffs, the team can expect to sustain that excellence.

Since 2015, there have been 10 teams who played at least six postseason games and sustained a two-out OPS of .750 of better during that run:

• 2020 Dodgers, .996
• 2018 Astros, .893
• 2019 Rays, .883
• 2021 Astros, .840
• 2021 Team Strip Mall, Suburban Georgia, .829
• 2023 Rangers, .806
• 2018 Red Sox, .805
• 2017 Yankees, .784
• 2020 Padres, .764
• 2019 Nationals, .756

That's an interesting group, and a telling one, if you vividly remember some of the teams in question. Half of them won the World Series, and six won their league's pennant. Obviously, hitting with two outs is a bit of a fluky thing, over such a small sample as any postseason run is, but if you worried that the higher quality of opposing pitching would make it impossible to produce consistently with two outs in October, you can slough off that concern.

Making the playoffs is a privilege full of pain. You play until you lose, unless you win it all, and the expansion of the postseason means the odds of that are longer than ever. There are no guarantees of transferring any of the skills or characteristics that feel so intrinsic and important and virtuous from the regular season to the tournament, and if those things don't come to bear and a team fizzles in their moment in the spotlight, the whole endeavor takes on a sense of emptiness that's viciously unfair.

Last year, that's precisely what happened to the Brewers. It could, of course, happen again. Under Murphy, though, the Brewers have become utterly relentless, and their two-out hitting is almost as much a matter of personality as of talent. It sure feels like this team will fight to the last out, within each game and series, but also within each inning. Maybe that will make for a deeper run into the autumn this time around.